I am often asked when did I get to where I am with respect to acceptance of the accident or how do I constantly manage to make light of challenging situations with dark humor even when things are constantly thrown my way as anyone who is disabled can relate to?

Well, in short, I’m most definitely crazy, but above all I’m a CONSTANT SCIENTIST in my own life … Testing my limits and seeing how far life will take me.

When I think about everything that I have been through I think it is all worth it if I can help even just one person on this earth with advice, humor or whatever they may need. Oftentimes I end up experimenting on myself for other people. I’ve tried countless measures to improve my life in so many ways and here are just a few examples to demonstrate how I push myself on a daily basis:

When I first started online dating and meeting gentlemen I wasn’t quite sure how things would progress when I reached the bedroom stage of the relationship. I am paralyzed from the chest down with some arm function. So, in order to get me into bed I have to have somebody lift me, take off my close, clean my catheter, and get me into position. Clearly this is not the most sexy activity and I was not quite sure how I was going to proceed with getting naked with men that I did not know very well.

As multiple dates progressed it was getting to the point where I was probably going to have to stop secret make out sessions around my apartment complex and take them upstairs. I explained to my gentleman callers I had caregivers that would help me with my daily living activities, but I did not explain what that entailed.

Several of these men were courting me and I felt I was at that point and comfortable to where I wanted to dive in and have sex with them. This still left me with the conundrum … How on earth was I going to look sexy for the first time?

I woke up one morning racking my brain because I had invited one of these men up to my bedroom on a Friday night and it was presently Wednesday morning. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I should be all prepared in bed for them so they did not have to do any work. I could put on sexy lingerie, tape my catheter tube to my body so they did not rip it out, lay myself in a somewhat attractive position, and have them walk into my apartment.

The next question that was playing in my mind was how to tell these guys that I would be ready for sex and all they had to do was walk into my apartment. I agreed with my caregivers beforehand that they would hide in their room when the guys walked in in order to not make them uncomfortable.

The term “UNDERWEAR DATE” was born. Essentially, I would be in my knickers and a sexy little blanket waiting for action! I didn’t think these guys would have any problem with the concept as I pretty much could not make it any easier for them 🙂 You must remember that this was a time in my life when I wanted to experiment sexually and I was not interested in a relationship. I needed to explore my body sexually and figure out what worked for me, and what did not. Clearly this would require a little bit of experimentation, a great deal of humor, and a carefree attitude.

“I was trying to be wonder woman in bed! A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do”

I will not going to details of all of my underwear dates, but I will highlight a few of the funnies. Continue reading →

Suicide, especially in the United States, is a topic of conversation frowned upon for those who cannot fathom what it is like to be in such extreme emotional or physical pain. Regardless of disability there are times in life for many folks where life simply does not seem to be worth living for a multitude of reasons. It can be challenging for people who are happy with their life to understand how anyone would want to end theirs because life has so much to offer in their view. To this I respond, unless you have been down that deep dark road of complete and utter desperation it can be very challenging to relate to a suicidal person’s state of mind.

I, too, used to share the mind frame of not understanding why anyone would want to end their life. I have always been the type of girl who is ridiculously positive, finds humor in life despite challenging situations, and pushes myself out of any kind of funk I might have in a relatively short period of time.

Don’t misunderstand me, I had always understood that deep depressions, anxiety, disabilities, etc. could lead people down dark roads, but believed that anyone could come back from the dark side with help. In my opinion, this may or may not be true now. I do believe everyone has the right to choose if they want to end their life or not. There are so many wonderful things in life to live for, but when one is in a state of complete hopelessness it can be challenging to come back from this without help.

When I broke my neck in 2010 I was one of the fortunate ones to never go through a major depression, constantly push forward, have an incredibly supportive family, the resources to continue to live my life, and work. Many folks are not as fortunate to have a situation like this. Throughout years of medical hell, intense chronic pain, and countless other complications I still managed to laugh, build a life after the initial trauma, and continue forward. I wasn’t happy, per say, for many years, but I managed to make the best out of an awful situation.

Life came to a screeching halt for me three years after my accident when I moved to China for spinal surgery. I could not have possibly prepared for what happened next to me over the course six months in 2013. In the beginning of 2013 we discovered I had a massive cyst in my spinal cord. We decided to move to China to undergo second major spinal surgery with some world-class Chinese Surgeons.

“After Surgery”

After surgery I developed excruciating chronic pain at the site of the injury on my neck in addition to my already burning chronic pain of pins and needles due to nerve damage from the injury that so many Spinal Cord Injury folks suffer from too. Four weeks after surgery my physical therapists put me up in a walking frame in my neck brace in order to get me moving. Within 10 seconds of being in the standing frame (unbeknownst to me at the time my osteoporosis had deteriorated severely) I heard a large crack in my kneecap, and my nerve pain when shooting to a level that was off the charts.

To make a long story short I had just underwent spinal surgery, developed severe acute and then chronic pain in my neck making it challenging for me to even sit up, and my femur (knee cap) + shinbone cracked straight through. I was bed bound and mentally alone in China for many months to follow. The Chinese neglected to tell me my leg was broken and it was not put in a cast to top it off (very long story). I couldn’t move, my blood pressure was through the roof for months, my nerve pain was higher than I could even put in words, I could not move my neck left or right, I was sweating profusely above my level of injury, and I literally could not move.

There were no immediate solutions to help me except wait. I was crying all the time, I could not breathe very well, I had radiating pain through every fiber of my being, I couldn’t think coherently, I could barely form a sentence without my voice shaking because the pain was unbearable, my entire support system was back in the United States except for my parents, and I certainly could not think how I was going to survive from hour to hour.

“Life Ebbs & Flows”

I definitely have an A type of personality, like to think critically, pride myself on working hard, thinking hard, and finding solutions to problems. This was the first time in my life I literally felt paralyzed, not just in my body, which I had become accustomed to, but in my mind. I could not fathom a worse form of torture for myself than what I was going through — mental parallelization. Continue reading →